A Very Alternate Yule Ball
by pstibbons
Summary: Years later, Viktor Krum recounts the events of the 1994 Yule Ball that got his old friend Hermione expelled from Hogwarts. No ships, though there's Krum/Cedric. Harry bashing, major, MAJOR Ron bashing. Moral : Incompetent fighters should never duel.


**This is an excerpt from "Sky Penguin: the Autobiography of Viktor Krum", published in 2032 by Sofia Mage Press, Inc. Translated from the original Bulgarian by Annette Burgdorf.**

_(A/N: Will readers used to Krum's not-so-great English please remember that this is a translation?)_

Of all the women who have ever accompanied me to formal occasions, the most interesting was Dark Lady Jane. Of course, she wasn't called that at the time. She was just Hermione Jane Granger then, a fifteen year old girl with a reputation for being a studious Muggleborn witch whose primary extracurricular activity was preventing Harry Potter (yes, that Harry Potter) from early death and expulsion from Hogwarts.

My first meeting with Hermione was during that infamous Triwizard Tournament in 1994, when students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons stayed at Hogwarts for a year for a competition that ended with the death of Cedric Diggory, one of the champions, and the resurrection of Voldemort.

It was a memorable meeting, for all the wrong reasons. For one thing, it was the first time I had actually been caught in flagrante delicto by a stranger. I was still in the closet then, so it was quite careless of me to be buggering a sexy wizard in a public place. However, the sexy wizard in question had assured me that no-one ever, ever visited that part of the Hogwarts library.

I am certain that he continued to believe that even when his pants were down and I was happily thrusting away into his fine Quidditch-hardened arse. Up until the moment that she stepped into our little alcove.

Cedric Diggory and I ceased all movement, completely and utterly horrified. He was in the closet as well, and even had someone who might be called a girlfriend. Our cowardly reputations could be ruined by this tiny bushy haired chit of a girl!

We waited for the shriek.

We waited some more.

She didn't even roll her eyes.

She did look at us, though. And then said something that I will never forget.

"Honestly! Don't you two dickheads know how to set up Proximity Charms? Now, move aside a bit, there's a book I need to get. "

And with that, she ever-so-gently shoved past us to get a thick tome from the stacks behind us. And then came back out, made a passing remark on how sitting on broomsticks for hours really did develop excellent glutes, and disappeared back to the main part of the library. Leaving Cedric and I with a pair of gaping mouths and limp members.

"No-one ever comes here, da?" I muttered while pulling my pants up. I'd been close to orgasm, so I was seriously miffed.

"Look at the books around here, Krum," replied Cedric as he cast spells to pacify his mussed up hair. "What normal student would be interested in the books they have here?"

I followed his advice, going to the place in the stacks from where she had retrieved her volume. It didn't take long to concede his point, seeing as there was a missing space between Volumes 4 and 6 of an 18th century encyclopedic set. A quick perusal through Volume 1 revealed that Volume 5 concentrated on the social status of Muggles in 15th century Maori society. Or maybe it was 14th century or Ainu society, I don't remember.

"Besides," mused Cedric, "I know for sure I set up a Notice-Me-Not charm here."

I grunted in disbelief. It was only several months later that she would tell us how she had noticed and gotten past it.

"You go first," continued Cedric. "I'll follow in a few minutes."

I nodded. As I was about to leave, I turned around and asked him, "Who is she?"

"Um? Oh. She's Hermione Granger. Everyone knows of her, though few talk to her. She's one of Harry Potter's friends."

I raised my eyebrows. It was well known that Potter only had two friends, who maintained a fragile cosmic balance. One male, one female. One smart, one stupid. Presumably the female one was not the stupid one.

"You know," said Cedric after a moment, "she has a reputation of being a rule addict. I'll go talk to her later. "

I nodded, and left. I made sure to take as circuitous a route as possible through the library on the way to the exit, but I didn't see the brunette anywhere.

I was nervous - if she told any journalist about my orientation, I would lose a lot of endorsements. This is a common problem for gay sportsmen - both Muggle and Wizard. Ever heard about a Czech squib named Martina Navratilova? She played on the Muggle tennis circuit from the 1970s to the 1990s. She was openly lesbian and earned only one or two percent of what she would have earned had she preferred cocks to cunts. That was a while ago, but things haven't changed much, at least not in the Magical world.

After all, it happened to me when I came out of the closet in my early thirties. Despite having won three Quidditch Champions League medals and a World Cup, three quarters of my sponsors dumped me. It hurt, dammit. Not the loss of money, but the loss of self-respect. But if I regret anything, it was not coming out earlier. Lady Jane always said I should have. She had a terribly annoying habit of being right more often than not.

But that's another story.

It took a few visits to the Hogwarts Library before I saw her again. My attempts to approach her were curtailed by the worthless gaggle of girls who insisted on following me everywhere. Like geese, they made noise, and apparently Hermione was not a fan of noise. She was, however, a fan of the Movement To Vanish Without A Trace. I had to Disillusion myself, avoid the groupies, and then approach Hermione from behind before I finally found ...

... myself at the end of a wand wielded by a very annoyed-looking brunette.

I realized, with hindsight, that approaching a competent witch from behind in the stacks - a relatively private area with no witnesses to protect her - was not a particularly smart thing to do.

"Er," I mumbled. "Hello."

She raised her eyebrows.

"My name is Viktor Krum."

She said nothing, though she did blink a couple of times.

I said something, or tried to. In the end, I also said nothing.

"I won't tell anyone about you and Diggory," she suddenly stated, as if tired of my flustered attempts to speak.

I was taken aback. "I can pay..." I said, not knowing what else to say.

"Don't bother. Just find a better location next time. I don't want to be reading a book one day and find a damp patch on the corner of a page."

She looked disgusted by the idea. Fortunately, I looked equally disgusted, which was my first plus mark in her book.

"I do hope this means you won't be coming to the library in future," she continued suddenly. "I'm getting close to Hexing your groupies."

Curious, I asked her what Hex she'd like to use.

"I'd make them think they were naked. They'd still have their clothes on, but they wouldn't know it."

I couldn't help it. I laughed. Loudly.

Five minutes later, we were both chucked out of the library by the resident manticore, Madam Pince I believe her name was, and Hermione was looking at me like I was made of potions ingredients that she planned to sell on the black market.

"You gorram heronista! You massive idiot!" she hissed.

"Want to go to the Ball with me?"

To this day, I don't know what made me ask her. Correction, I know why I asked her - she was fiery, interesting, discreet, ignored my fame, knew I was gay, and didn't give a shit that I was gay. What I don't know is why I asked her *so quickly*. I am normally quite deliberate about such matters. Perhaps it was the sheer surreality of the moment. Whatever the reason, the look on her face was worth it. I later took a photograph of it from a Pensieve and sent it to her on her 17th birthday. I still have it proudly displayed on my mantelpiece, along with the other pictures of people I am very fond of.

"Urgle?" she replied.

"The Yule Ball," I explained. "I need a date. A female date."

She looked genuinely confused. Then she pulled herself together and replied furiously, "I don't know what kind of woman you think I am, Mr Krum, but gullible I'm not. Good day." And with that, she slung her bookbag around her shoulder, only missing me because I rapidly jumped out of the way, and stomped off.

I have to confess that I was, at the point, stumped. I had never been turned down by a witch before.

Some 24 hours later, I was attending a Charms class with some of the Hogwarts seventh year students. We didn't have to attend the British classes, but Filius Flitwick had a good reputation even on the continent, and several of the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students found his teaching style excellent.

I wasn't sitting with Cedric Diggory, since he was too pretty for me to keep my hands off him under the desks. (Hey, I was seventeen and hormonal.) Instead, I met with him after class and explained Hermione's reaction to my invitation.

"Well, it's obvious, innit?" he considered. "She doesn't believe your invitation was genuine."

I snorted. I already knew that. So I waited for him to continue.

"You see," pontificated Cedric, "Hermione is one of those socially inept geniuses who happens to be quite attractive, but doesn't know it. She doesn't ever try to make herself up or anything. She is only close to two immature boys - Harry Potter and a dumb redhead called Moron Weasley - who have no idea how to treat a girl. I wouldn't be surprised if they even think of her as a girl. They wouldn't even be friends with her if she didn't do their homework for them. And Hermione knows this. She knows she hasn't ever had real friends her entire life. The concept that someone would actually be interested in her as a real friend is unbelievable to her."

By this stage, my jaw had dropped. "How do you know this?" I blurted out. Then I realized something. "And how much of this is, how do you say, spilkation?"

"Speculation?" corrected Cedric. "A lot, I admit. I have a friend - no, I won't tell you who - who's an empath and a budding psychologist. She finds Hermione a fascinating case study."

(Footnote: Cedric never did tell me who his friend was. A few years later, I found that it was Melanie Broom, formerly Endsworth, one of his housemates. She has her own private practice in Portsmouth that I heartily recommend if you are ever feeling overwhelmed in life.)

I pondered this for a while. "Hmmm. Da, I see, I think. Do you have any recommendations?"

"Yes," sighed Cedric. "Don't wait for her to trust you. That could take years. Write up a contract that details the responsibilities and expectations of both parties on the night of the Yule Ball. Make it magically binding on yourself. Then give it to the girl."

I was horrified by this idea.

"Surely no-one can be that paranoid!" I exclaimed.

Cedric turned to me with a sigh. "There's more. At least, my friend thinks there's more." He refused to provide further details, even when I promised to blow him three times a day for a week and to teach him some truly fantastic Bulgarian sex spells.

Now, the most logical thing for me to have done at this stage would be to have left Hermione alone. She was clearly more trouble than she was worth. Except that I couldn't. She was a challenge. And like any professional sportsman, I loved a challenge. I was going to be her friend, no matter how long it took.

And I succeeded. After about a decade. I even gave my mother hope that I wasn't completely gay - why else would a boy write a girl a letter a month for years if he didn't want to get in her pants?

Poor maman.

So, against all logic, I wrote up a contract, had my legal counsel at the Vrasta Vultures look at it, and then sent it by owl to Hermione. It took her five days to send it back with a few modifications, which I forwarded to my counsel before returning to her with further edits. All in all, it took two weeks for her to sign it.

Two weeks.

Two bloody weeks.

Two bloody long weeks during which I learnt how to silently cast the Nude Perception Jinx Hermione had suggested, practising on my beloved groupies. I would later teach it to my team-mates, and from there it spread until it became the jinx of choice among public figures (and their spouses) with groupie issues. All thanks to a fifteen year old Muggleborn witch.

(PS: If you, dear reader, have been a victim of it, do bear in mind that you have no legal right to squeeze any money out of the caster since your clothes remained on the whole time.)

One of the smarter moves I ever made off a broomstick was to include in the contract regular meetings between Hermione and myself in the few weeks before the Yule Ball. I was surprised she didn't remove the clause. She probably wanted to see what she was getting into.

Besides, the one thing that everyone agreed on about Hermione Granger was that she was curious. Insatiably so. She wanted to know what, where, when, why, who, and most importantly, how. We talked about Durmstrang, Hogwarts, Pureblood traditions and values, Dark vs Light spells, strange creatures. We never talked about the Triwizard Tournament, Harry Quisling Potter, Quidditch, or her home life.

Her home life.

You cannot imagine how much I want to say about the unfortunate home life of the greatest Dark witch in 21st century Western Europe. But as I said before, I can't. I mustn't.

I will say that everything you ever heard about it is wrong.

I suspect Hermione will kill me for saying even that... if she hadn't been killed by Harry Potter as she fought with her Lycan compatriots against government oppression.

But I will confirm that she was Muggleborn. She was too powerful to be Pureblood, even before the numerous rituals she went through to increase her magic so that she could better fight for the rights of all magical creatures.

Some readers will feel that my 'too powerful to be Pureblood' jab is a little unfair. This is true. There is a one in twenty chance that Hermione was a Pureblood. After all, only ninety five of the hundred most powerful witches and wizards in the last century have had at least one Muggle grandparent.

...

By the time the Yule Ball came around, Hermione and I had an understanding. I don't understand what the understanding was, and she didn't know either, but it was there. For my part, I was still treating her as a professional dragon tamer would treat an abused wyvern - cautiously, calmly, no sudden movements. She knew it, I knew it, we both pretended we didn't know it, we both knew the other was pretending, and so on.

Needless to say, this was all a source of great amusement to Cedric, who made sure to bring up my new friend at the most inopportune moments.

It is surprisingly difficult to verbally defend yourself when your mouth is filled with your accuser's cock.

_"So has Hermione persuaded you to swing both ways yet?"_

_"Got any good gossip on Potter lately?"_

_"How's her hand after the letters she's been getting?"_

_"Want to swap dates for the Ball? I'll trade you three Chos for one Granger!" (Cho was Cedric's on-again off-again girlfriend.)_

_"Open your mouth wider, you Slavic man-whore!"_

Ah, Cedric. He was a good squeeze. I was truly gutted when he was killed by Peter Pettigrew, Voldemort's most trusted Death Eater.

In any case, I had decidedly not switched dates on Hermione for the Ball. After all, the terms of our contract would have left me a testicle short if I had. (Her edits, not mine. I had originally offered a tooth.)

She was a vision that night, outshining anyone in the room without Veela blood. Many of her own classmates did not recognize her. Those who did expressed shock at how the bookworm could actually look sublime. I heard the phrase 'Ugly Duckling' mentioned a few times, and was surprised - I had honestly never thought of Hermione's regular looks as ugly. I can only conclude that the British have a very different sense of taste from us.

The next couple of hours were one of the more entertaining I've ever had at a formal occasion. Hermione enjoyed herself too - most girls do like to get to get 'all dolled up', and Hermione, for all her disgust with simpering bimbo witches, was no exception.

All this may be surprising to those who saw her in her later years, for Dark Lady Jane always had the reputation of being the best and most daringly dressed witch at any formal dinner or ball later on. Even her fighting clothes, the black tracksuits or army camouflage she would wear on the battlefield, often end ed up in the pages of witch's fashion magazines. Her infamy and strategic press leaks did more to make Muggle styles fashionable for the hip crowd than anyone in recent history, with the possible exceptions of John Castarioni and Lady Altair de Menezes. And Sasha Veranova, of course.

But all that was later in life. This was then. This was a fifteen year old girl who wasn't good enough to be asked by her best friend to a dance when he desperately needed a date. Her other friend, Moron, only asked her at the very last minute, taking it for granted that nobody would ever ask her to the dance. (And after all that, she still arranged dates for her two worthless 'friends'.)

She didn't say much to Potter during the Ball, other than a wave and a few words.

But she did exchange more than a few words with Moron that night. Indeed, most historians consider it a defining moment, the start of the transformation of Hermione Jane Granger to Dark Lady Jane. It was the moment Albus Dumbledore - and many others - put her on his Possible Future Dark Sorcerers list. Most French feminists say it was the start of the Third Eurasian Revival of Witchcraft.

Towards the end of the Ball, I left Hermione for a few minutes while I went to fetch us a pair of drinks. Even now, I feel bad about it, and have never left my dates out of my sight again.

At this time, Moron Weasley decided that if he couldn't dance with the most beautiful witch in Hogwarts, then nobody could. Certainly not some dark old foreign wizard. He accused Hermione, loudly and in public, of 'fraternizing with the enemy' and asking her how many times she had to shag me to get invited to the dance. He then stormed off, leaving many onlookers shocked and Hermione crying on the stairs. Even more shocking, Harry Potter refused to comfort her - despite everything she had done for the arsehole that year - and instead followed Moron away from Hermione.

For Hermione, that was the moment she truly admitted to herself that the Dim Duo were not her friends any more.

I had just filled up our drinks - there was a long queue - when Cedric and Cho rushed to me, both looking very perturbed. Before the Hufflepuff wizard could say anything, his date quickly filled me in on the details.

To say that I was furious was an understatement.

Shoving the drinks into their hands, I dashed back to where I had left Hermione, expecting to find a crying and broken witch.

But she wasn't crying any more.

And if she was broken, she was rapidly putting herself back together. Goodbye Hermione Jane, hello Lady Jane.

I tried to embrace her, but she pushed me away. Then she seemed to think better of it, gave me a quick hug, and whispered into my ear, "This is my fight. Don't interfere, alright?"

I put my hands on her shoulders to better look at her.

"You will duel Moron?" I asked.

"Moron?" she asked with a giggle. She'd never heard anyone call him that before - and I'd never heard her giggle before either. "It fits, better than Ronald." She giggled again.

Then she stepped away from me, gave me a stern look to remind me that I should not interfere, and then cast the Sonorous spell on herself.

"RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY! AS PER THE THIRD HOGWARTS RULE OF SALAZAR SLYTHERIN AND HELGA HUFFLEPUFF, I, HERMIONE JANE GRANGER, CHALLENGE THEE TO A DUEL ACCORDING TO RAVENCLAW RULES! THE PENALTY FOR REFUSAL IS THE DISHONOUR TO ALL MEMBERS OF CLAN WEASLEY!"

This declaration was followed by, well, chaos.

After much discussion with other onlookers, I have put together a list of reactions, in the approximate order that they happened. It should be remembered that Moron and Potter were well on the way to their dormitory at the time, though they could not have failed to hear Hermione's challenge. After all, they were still in the castle.

1. Various teachers and chaperons arrived at the scene, including the Heads of Hogwarts (Albus Dumbledore), Beauxbatons (Melandra Maxime), Durmstrang (Igor Karkaroff), and Hermione's Head of House and then-favourite teacher, Minerva McGonagall.

2. The three other Weasleys at Hogwarts popped up. Fred, George are the twins who later went on to found the military defence contractor firm Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes), while Ginny was the only girl in a family of seven siblings and the closest thing Hermione had to a female acquaintance.

3. Dumbledore angrily demanded that Hermione rescind her challenge.

4. Hermione indignantly refused.

5. Ginny went to fetch Moron in case he refused to turn up. It was family honour, after all.

6. Minerva McGonagall tried to persuade Hermione that she would, as a Muggleborn, ruin her reputation by challenging a Pureblood.

7. Fred and George began taking bets on how long it would take Hermione to win the duel. They didn't offer the option that their own brother would win.

8. Draco Malfoy, a proud Pureblood scion with very little to be proud about, correcly pointed out that under British law, a Mudblood who lost to a Pureblood in a duel would have her magic stripped from her.

9. Ginny returned with a very pale looking Moron. Potter trailed them both.

10. Potter tried to persuade Hermione to forgive Moron.

11. Hermione slapped Potter, who staggered back a couple of steps.

12. Betting reached a thousand galleons. Some bookies were offering odds, admittedly low, on the Pureblood wizard winning.

13. Hermione asked Filius Flitwick, who was also chaperoning the event, to referee the duel. He agreed without hesitation.

14. Reluctantly, Albus Dumbledore cleared a space for the duel.

15. Hermione transfigured her elegant periwinkle blue dress to a comfortable loose-fitting periwinkle blue tracksuit. Many straight males became rather glad that they were wearing school robes, seeing as conservative Pureblood fashion didn't allow women to wear anything remotely interesting.

It was a hushed crowd at the Yule Ball that night, watching two former friends prepare to duke it out. Hermione and Moron stood at opposite ends of a wide duelling platform. Moron was already sweating as Flitwick read out the rules - no Unforgivables, no spells above Class IV, no lasting physical damage, the loser was the first person to lose their wand.

Hermione was silent and emotionless. Most witches, in a duel, tied their hair back. Instead, as if to show her utter contempt for her opponent, Hermione shook her hair out, casting a spell to return it from a delicate coiffure to its normal wild self. A few muttered spells later, it was flowing back as if in a wind, sparks crackling as they emitted excess magic. An imposing sight that she would perfect in future battles, leading to one of her many titles - the Mudblood Medusa.

Potter, in the corner with the other Weasleys, was quiet. He occasionally touched his cheek as if to verify that his homework whore had really slapped him.

Flitwick, having finished squeaking out the rules, levitated a bright blue handkerchief in the air between the duellists.

He cancelled the levitation spell.

The duel began as the cloth hit the floor.

The duel as a contest ended a second later, when Hermione's near-silent spell connected with Moron. It was a partial petrification spell that affected his arms. The comments began at once - what was she up to? It became clear three seconds later, when she cast a sticking spell to his right hand to ensure that it would keep on holding his wand, and a Silencio. Her intent was clear - not just victory, but humiliation.

Dumbledore wore a very worried look.

And as Moron was raised into the air and began rotating, there was silence in the hall. Even some looks of horror, though the story hadn't started yet. He began turning faster and faster as Hermione controlled him, mercilessly changing his speed of rotation randomly so he could never get used to it. The more intelligent onlookers began raising shields. Most of the audience raised them after the wizard began spewing out the contents of his stomach. As he had been gorging himself during the banquet earlier, there was much to spew.

"STOP THIS AT ONCE, Miss Granger! You have won the duel!" bellowed Albus Dumbledore.

She paid no attention to him.

Karkaroff, our Death Eater Headmaster, watched, fascinated. Severus Snape, another former Death Eater and unquestionably the bravest man in the war against Voldemort, watched with apparent indifference. But he did watch.

She added a couple more dimensions to Moron's rotation. The resulting parabolas of sick would be used as examples in at least one advanced Arithmancy textbook in the future.

After what felt like hours, the redhead was dry heaving painfully, and the duelling platform was covered with vomit.

Most bookies did not look pleased.

One of the Weasley twins was taking notes.

Jane stopped the torture of her former friend. Moron looked dazed, nauseous, covered in vomit, and terrified.

Potter looked furious.

Jane started chanting softly, swaying her body sinuously in time with the stanzas. Her irises vanished, leaving her eyes completely white and glazed over.

Dumbledore put his face in his hands. He said nothing, though. Perhaps he knew that she wouldn't be able to hear him.

McGonagall looked ashen.

Maxime looked extraordinarily interested, whispering hurriedly with Fleur Delacouer and Nicole des Jardins, the Beauxbatons Head Girl. The two girls, like other witches, had their eyes firmly on Jane, trying to commit the chants to memory.

A thin brown rope appeared from the bottom of Moron's trousers and kept growing.

Maxime started chuckling.

I suddenly had a flashback of something Hermione had said to me earlier.... "Boys always stick together. What does a girl have to do to be treated as an equal by them? Grow a penis?"

The humiliation of Moron Weasley had only just begun.

Lady Jane continued to chant. Her left hand straightened out and began spiralling slowly upwards. In response, the rope continued to grow, and twirled loosely around Moron's robes. Within a minute, it had gone around him two dozen times, from the legs up.

Gasps of horror and admiration bubbled up amongst the audience as they realized just what the rope was. I was already laughing my head off, loudly. I wasn't the only one laughing. Many witches, starting with Cho, were doing the same. Cedric looked a little green. He wasn't the only wizard to do so.

I was wondering if this was magic or witchcraft. If the former, then it could be an excellent sex spell, both for masturbation and intercourse. Why fuck anyone else if you could fuck yourself? Well, that wasn't entirely true. But it was a nice thought. Of course, if it was witchcraft, then wizards wouldn't be able to use it, which would be a tragedy.

Sadly, it was indeed witchcraft.

Potter looked furious. He even lifted his wand to cast a spell at Hermione, but one of Moron's brothers quickly pushed it down and whispered angrily into his ear. Presumably The Boy Who Lived To Betray His Best Friend had just been informed of what would happen to someone interfering in a duel.

Moron's elongated (and very thin) penis continued to wrap itself around the terrified wizard. If he suffered from low self-esteem before, that was nothing compared to what he would suffer for the rest of his life. The rules said nothing about inflicting lasting non-physical damage.

Hermione's irises returned, though they were now a savage white contrasting against the black of the rest of her eyes. She looked at her opponent, as if for the first time, and a terrifying smirk found its way to her face. I had seen such an expression before, on a medieval Muggle painting of the Christian Devil as he led a herd of screaming humans to their eternal damnation.

Her right hand jerked, then thrust forward.

Moron's dick thrust forward into its owner's unwilling mouth. He desperately tried to keep it closed, but a clothes peg appeared on his nose.

For the next few minutes, we were treated to a new meaning of the phrase 'Go Fuck Yourself'. It was very informative, and chockfull of possibilities for anyone who wasn't a heterosexual male idiot.

Then the motion stopped. Slowly, Moron, still wrapped in cock, toppled over. And every wizard watching, including myself, winced and unconsciously moved our hands to our groin. Moron screamed as his body crushed half his penis.

This was beyond humiliation.

"Expelliarmus."

She said it quietly, like an afterthought. Her ex-friend's wand spun into the air, and into her outstretched right hand.

"The duel is over," intoned Filius Flitwick, who seemed unaffected by the spells used in the duel. "The winner is Hermione Jane Granger. And as a member of the International Duelling Council, I nominate Hermione Jane Granger for a Class Three Green Belt, for innovation."

As the Weasleys and McGonagall rushed to the aid of Moron, Hermione's jaw dropped at Flitwick's surprisingly generous (and justified) pronouncement. Then her entire body dropped as a red spell passed over her head. Her arm whipped out in defence, and half a dozen knives flew to where the stunner came from. There were screams as one of them hit the caster in the shoulder and two others hit a couple of third year Ravenclaws.

"MISS GRANGER!" bellowed Albus Dumbledore.

She turned to look at him, though she seemed much more interested in seeing if the two collateral damage students were alright.

"YOU ARE HEREBY EXPELLED FROM HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY!"

She didn't seem too surprised. Instead she cocked her head and asked, "On what charge?"

Dumbledore seemed quite flustered at her calm question. He quickly realized that he could not punish her for any of the spells she had cast during the duel, no matter how inhumane.

"For attacking two innocent Hogwarts students with knives," he replied.

"Oh?" she replied, glancing at the two students. Their housemates were bandaging them up; the damage wasn't too great. "What of Harry Potter? He cast an unprovoked spell at me after the duel."

Dumbledore looked even more flustered. "He will be suspended for two weeks," he finally said.

Hermione looked at him for a while. "There is a Hogwarts law, is there not, that makes it easier to expel Mudbloods than Half-bloods or Purebloods? Section Eight, Subsection Fifteen?"

Dumbledore looked furious and then walked away in the direction of the Hospital Wing. He paused for a moment to declare the Ball over.

He also paused a few seconds later, when Madame Maxime loudly offered Hermione a position at Beauxbatons with a full scholarship, on condition that she teach the penis enlarging spell to her new fellow-students.

The blue-clad French witches began to applaud as Hermione accepted with a blush. Dumbledore left, furious.

Harry Potter looked at Hermione darkly. She looked back with indifference.

I walked up to her and offered her my arm. She took it, dazed. Her adrenalin was running out, and she was coming to terms with what she had done. By some strange form of common consent, Cedric, Cho, and Fleur formed an honour guard as we led her outside Hogwarts. Three champions with the former friend of the fourth champion. An odd sight, indeed.

What happened afterwards is common knowledge. Hermione became a Beauxbatons student the next day, though she remained at Hogwarts for the rest of the year. She and Potter had several illegal duels in the corridors, which he won sixty percent of the time - though some of his victories were decidedly Pyrrhic. Her duelling was getting better though, and the percentage would have been reversed had she stayed the following year.

Ten years later, it was only with the help of Lady Jane that Potter defeated Voldemort. Had they remained friends, that Dark Lord would doubtless have been destroyed earlier.

Twenty years later, Harry Quisling Potter had his revenge, AK-ing the Dark Lady Jane in the back when she thought that their fifth lifetime truce was still in effect. It turned out that the problem with her paranoia of not trusting people was that she was not paranoid enough.

Fortunately, the well oiled organization of Lycans, Vampyres, Free Elves, Goblins, and Muggleborns that she had formed was strong enough to continue after her death, and the struggle against Pureblood oppression in Britain continues. All proceeds of this book, and associated merchandise, go to that struggle.

* * *

_A/N: This is a one-shot. And yes, I am perfectly aware that this is a rapidly written (and thus choppy) fic whose sole purpose was to introduce the Malinga spell used on Ron in the end. If you're a DLP type, go stuff your head in an oven - you bastards have no shame, taste, or tolerance for anyone who doesn't think Harry Potter is God. Flame away, you filthy gutless maggots - especially those without the courage (or mental capacity) to leave a signed review. _

_As for those of you who think this is a Mary Sue, go recalibrate yourself - if I was to make Hermione a Mary Sue, she would not be losing so many duels to Harry or end up getting killed by him. Of course I modified her character from canon - even from OOTP!Hermione. Who doesn't? What is the point of fanfiction if one cannot do that? Are you, like, stupid?_

_Those who say there's Harry bashing here - well, duh. I warned you in the summary. Think of how many times Harry lets Hermione suffer in canon when she's verbally attacked by Ron or Ginny. Think of how little care he shows for her - he doesn't even give her a birthday present or ask her what her parents' names are. True, some of that can be blamed on being a boy. Some can be blamed on being an abused kid. But not all of it. Besides, I agree that Hermione's response to Ron's attack is disproportionate. That's pretty obvious. Harry does have a right to get angry about that - though he should know what it means for someone to 'finally snap'._

_You may, however, criticize the quality of writing, if you are yourself capable of spelling correctly or stringing three words together in that pea-sized organ you claim to be a brain. _


End file.
